What To Do Or Not Do In H2O Fanfictions
by KitKatEmerald
Summary: Random rants about doing/not doing things in H2O fanfictions.
1. Introduction and Contents

**Introduction**

So this chapter is just a quick introduction to this 'fanfiction' and below is a contents for it. Well this isn't exactly a fanfiction, as such. It's just a random rant about random things that people should or shouldn't do in fanfics. Some of them are specific to this category, and some aren't. And that's basically it... Rated T for possible swearing if I get a little too heated up during my rants. If you have any suggestions, leave a review.

PS. Sorry about the whole not updating H2O: The Next Generation for ages. It just kinda needs to be edited and everything, plus I'm busy with things like school (ugh).

**Contents**

**1. Introduction/Contents**

**2. **Emma and Bella **Uploaded  
**

**3. **Emma **Not uploaded**

**4. **OCs **Not uploaded**

**5. **Author's Notes **Not uploaded**

**6. **Next Generations **Not uploaded**

**7. **Rikki **Not uploaded**

**8. **Lewis **Not uploaded**

**9. **Copying **Not uploaded**

**10. **AUs **Not uploaded**

**11+ More to come**


	2. Emma and Bella

**Emma and Bella**

**Don't make them hate each other. **This idea was good at first, but now it's just overused. It's becoming used less and less now, but still. It's just been used so much that I think everyone's glad to get a break from it. However, there are some circumstances under which I might read this. Such as the things in this list to follow:

**1.** It triggers something that makes the fanfic the best ever. For example, I Thought She Was Dead by H2O4ever is an awesome story which I have read about 2394729847 times (2 billion, 394 million, 729 thousand, 847 times. I literally just whacked the number section on my keyboard and that came up :P), but the whole thing wouldn't have worked if Bella and Emma hadn't hated each other at the beginning.  
PS. If you haven't read this story and you want to, it's unfinished. It's been adopted by someone else but I'm not quite sure if she's going to finish it.

**2.** You are an amazing writer and no matter how awful the storyline is, I just can't stop reading. I haven't come across one like this yet, but you never know what you might find. For example, you might have other stories that I've read that I absolutely love, and so do most other people, and I hate the plot for this new story, but I have to read it because it's written by you. It's like Summer's Dream by Cathy Cassidy. Summer is just an annoying bitch who thinks she's fat even though she's about one stone (exaggeration. I don't think that's even possible). But I had to read it because Cathy Cassidy is my favourite author.

**3.** It's part of a series. This one sort of ties into the Cathy Cassidy thing again. If you haven't read it, you probably won't know this, but Summer's Dream is part of a series written by her called The Chocolate Box Girls. As much as Summer annoyed me whilst reading this, I had to read it because it was part of a series. So it only sort of ties in because I would have figured out what happened by reading the next book anyway, and it's not crucial to the plot of the next story, but it still includes parts of it. It's like, the second book in that series is called Marshmallow Skye, and I read that one first, not realising it was part of a series, and when I found out that it was part of a series, I wanted to read the first book because it contained part of the plot. Right? So what I'm trying to say, is that this might be the first book in a series, and you couldn't read the next one, which has the best idea ever, without reading this one first. Or it might be the last book, and you have to read it because the one before it ended on a cliffhanger and this one gives loads of answers to shocking questions that came up in the book before.

**4.** If it's ridiculously hilarious. For example, I recently read a fanfic called H2O Suicide by Nemesis247. It's just stupidly funny, and it all started with Bella and Emma hating each other. I couldn't say, but it probably wouldn't have been written if there wasn't a possibility of a rivalry between the two girls.

**5.** If there are other things going on as well. I can't think of one of these that I've read, but an example would be something like this:  
Emma comes back and hates Bella, whilst Bella hates her. But at the same time, Cleo's mum kidnaps her and Kim from their dad and Sam, and Rikki moves in with her mum because her dad dies. Okay, okay, it's a bit out there, but you know what I mean.

So that's basically it for those exceptions. Now, these are the things that you should never do no matter what if you want to make them hate each other:

**1.** Don't make one of them lose their powers. I've come across so many of these and the plot is the same every single time. They hate each other, they become enemies, one of them makes the other lose their powers, the end. If you're going to do that, at least please me slightly by writing a sequel where the one that lost their powers gets them back. Or make all of them lose their powers instead of just one.

**2.** Don't make one of them turn the others against the other one. For example, don't use this idea:  
Emma comes back and hates Bella, so she tells the others to choose either her or Bella. If you use that, at least make them choose Bella. Because they obviously wouldn't choose Emma if she's making them choose between her and Bella.

**3.** Don't make an ending where they just become friends and live happily ever after. I mean, that would never happen in real life, right? Think about it. Here's a random example situation:  
So a few years back, I moved house to somewhere about an hour away from where I used to live. Last year, it was one of my friend's thirteenth birthday, and she lives back where I used to live, so I went there for her party. So she invited some new friends as well, and that's fine. She's obviously going to make new friends, right? But there was this one girl who seemed to hate me who was friends with my friend (I'm gonna call her Lau - fake name that sounds kinda like her name so yeah - because I'll refer back to this situation). So I was just like, okay, and decided to hate her back. And I know I don't live there anymore, like Emma would if she came back and became enemies with Bella, but it's sort of the same situation. Except the one with Emma and Bella could be seen as worse because of the whole mermaid thing. So I know that I would probably never become best friends with Lau, and seeing as the Bella/Emma situation is worse, they probably wouldn't either. Of course, the mermaid thing could just make it better, but if you're writing this story in the first place, chances are, it doesn't.

Right, so that's enough on the whole rivalry front. Now I've got something else that annoys me about them:

**Don't make them best friends straight away.**

Let's go back to the topic of me and Lau. So when I first met her, there was absolutely no chance that I was going to become best friends with her straight away. Maybe friends, but not best friends. Once again, the whole mermaid thing could come into this and just sort of make them best friends, but it's highly unlikely. Think about it. With me and Lau, the reason that I wouldn't become best friends with her straight away is because of a sort of jealousy thing. Unless you're a really nice, understanding, forgiving person, there's no way that you would just meet your old best friends' new best friend and become friends with her straight away. I was never going to just be all like, "OMG, look! My old best friends have gotten new best friends! Let's become best friends with them and live happily ever after, the end!" No. Just no.

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**Thanks for reading! More will come soon, and leave any suggestions in the comments. :)**

**Forever and always,  
****-Kat xxx**


	3. Emma

**Emma**

Right. Emma. We love her. We miss her. We want her to return. Or maybe we hate her. We're happy she left. We don't want her to come back.

Okay. So let's say you're more for the first one. You miss Emma and you want her to return. So go on then, write a fanfiction where she comes back. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all whatsoever. I'm all for that idea. No one can say that it's overused, because that's basically saying that it's overused to write a fanfic that includes the canon characters, even though the point of writing a fanfic is generally, well, to write a fanfic that includes the canon characters. Unless it's a Next Generation fanfic or something, but even then, you would probably still use the canon characters as the parents, or the Miss Chathams of the future or something... So if anyone says it's overused, ignore them. Please. I just have to say that because some idiots actually do think it's overused.

Anyway. So obviously, the idea isn't overused. However, it is used quite a lot. So if you want to write a fanfic including Emma, but without her coming back to the Gold Coast, here are some random ideas that you could use:

**1. **A story about Emma whilst she's travelling. In Season Three, we found out what Cleo, Rikki and the others got up to. But Emma pretty much just disappeared off the face of Earth, so we have absolutely no idea what happened with her while she was away. The solution is simple then really. Write a fanfiction all about what Emma did while she was travelling. Did she meet new mermaids? Did she make new friends? Did anyone find out about her secret? Did she develop any new powers? Did she get attacked by the water tentacle? The possibilities are endless. I have seen one or two of these, but not for quite a while, and one or two is hardly any, so no one can say it's overused (at the moment at least).

**2. **A collection of emails/phone calls/whatevers between Emma and the others. As stated before, when Emma left, that was it. No contact between her and the others. She was just gone. But who's to say that they didn't contact each other? Maybe it just never came up in the show because they weren't relevant. But this really could be relevant. Perhaps Cleo found out some information about the comet by asking Emma about it. Maybe Emma already knew about Bella since the beginning because Rikki told her about her.

**3. **Emma goes to Ireland during her travels, and rents out the house which Bella used to live in! Some random stuff happens while she's there and I don't know. ;)

PS. Feel free to use these ideas.

Now, we're finished with the idea of loving Emma, but what about the idea of hating her? You hate her as much as you hate Justin Bieber (sorry for all you 'Beliebers' out there. But c'mon. He's been banned from the USA, deported from Canada, and will most likely be spending the rest of his life in a prison cell (I cried tears of joy when he was arrested just two days before my birthday! Best present ever!). He said rape happens for a reason, he had his bodyguards carry him up the Great Wall of China, he abandoned his first pet monkey in Germany, and once he got another one, he forced his private plane to wait eight freaking hours for it. He arrived at one of his concerts two hours late, and claimed he was only forty minutes late. Okay, I'm getting off topic. But really, it just had to be said...).

So anyways... If you don't want Emma to return, that's fine. But if she's not going to be in your fanfic, at least say why at the beginning of the actual thing (unless the reason why she isn't in it gives away some of the plot, but that's not quite what I mean). I've read quite a few where it continues from Season Three, but Emma just doesn't come back. If you don't want her to come back, then include reasons. Maybe things like these:

**1. **Emma doesn't come back because her family decide to travel for a year longer or something. Or maybe they just decide to live in one of the countries that they travelled to because they liked it there so much.

**2. **Emma goes missing! :O Of course, that would have to be part of the story because, well, her friends wouldn't just be like, "OMIGOD, EMMA'S MISSING! ... Eh, I'm over it." But still, I guess you could use that if you have kind of moderate views on Emma, or if you just like the idea.

**3. **The girls go to college and Emma goes to a different one from them. You would probably have to briefly mention her in a flashback or something, but whatever.

Yeah, so that's it for the whole Emma disappearing/returning thing. There's also something else I wanted to say, which isn't strictly for Emma, but also Ash.

**Emma and Ash**

So whenever I read fanfics where Emma comes back, there's just one thought that keeps going through my head quite a lot for some:

Where the heck is Ash?!

So personally, I'm not really that big a fan of Ash, so I don't really mind too much. But I don't quite get why you would make Emma come back, but not Ash. I'm not saying that every fanfic where Emma comes back, because in a lot of them, Ash comes back as well. But some people do this, and it gets on my nerves. So yeah, just to remind you, if you bring back Emma, bring back Ash, unless you have an excuse for his absence.

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**That's all I can think of about Emma. Leave suggestions in the comments!**

**Forever and always,  
-Kat xxx**


	4. OCs

**OCs (Original Characters)**

Personally, I'm quite a big fan of these. I mean, it gives you a chance to show your skills by making up your own characters, right? Or if you get the readers to make up their own OCs, that's cool too. It's more of a challenge to get them right, but if you do, it just shows your skill even more. Plus, if readers make up their own characters which you put into your fanfic, you're going to get more reads, follows, favourites and reviews from them, making your story more popular. And if people see that your story is popular, they're going to think that it must be good, so they'll read it. So basically, you're going to become famous. Okay, maybe not famous, but...

However, that's just (some of) the good things about OCs. Because, of course, there's a bad side too.

**The bad side**

**1. **When the characters are completely flawless. Now, I understand that sometimes that's part of the plot. Like, you might need this particular character to be utterly perfect for the story to work. But unless you've got something like that going on, which is quite unlikely, you really don't want the characters to be perfect. That just makes the whole thing unrealistic. I get that some shows/books/films/cartoons/whatevers kind of already are unrealistic. Like in H2O - I doubt that any of us will be turning into mermaids any time soon. But the way that the show is produced makes it realistic. Okay, maybe the part where they saved the world was a little too unrealistic to ever be realistic, no matter how good the acting was, but you get the idea. The whole mermaid aspect is generally made realistic by things such as the characters not being perfect.

**2. **Mary Sues. I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure what a Mary Sue is... I've looked it up about 26 gazillion times and seven quarters (yes, that's right, seven quarters...), but I've never understood it. However, after looking it up about 3ish more times today, I've finally figured out that it has something to do with the characters being perfect (read the above for that part), and based on the author. However, I'm not so sure what's so bad about basing a character on yourself... I mean, basing characters on real people actually makes the story more realistic, right? Because making up a look and a personality tends to be harder than simply stealing an actual person's appearance and personality. Because if you use an appearance and personality that already belongs to someone, there's no way that the character can be perfect. So actually, just ignore this. Because Mary Sues don't exist. Making your character perfect exists, but it doesn't exist if the character is based on a real person, unless that person actually is perfect. And since that's impossible, it's pretty unlikely... And if, for some strange reason, that person who you base the character on really is perfect, then the perfectness can't make the character unrealistic, because the person who they're based on is obviously real! Plus, unless you have a detailed description of yourself on your profile or something, or loads of pictures of yourself from different angles, wearing different clothes, different hairstyles and all of that, no one would ever even know if the character is based on you! Bunch of idiots...

**3. **Making your OC fall in love. Okay, so this one's kind of hard. And it also depends on the reader. Personally, I have completely different opinions of this depending on the story. So let's say that you want your OC to date a canon character. Well, if this particular canon character didn't have a boyfriend or girlfriend originally, then go ahead and let the OC date them. For me, that's fine. Although for some people it isn't, but these are just my opinions. If the canon character had a boyfriend or girlfriend originally who they then broke up with, if I'm a fan of the broken up couple, then I'd prefer for them to get back together in your fanfic, but if one of them dates an OC, that's fine too. If I hated the couple beforehand anyway, then that's even better! But please, don't break up a couple just so that one of them (or both) can date an OC in the fanfic. Unless this couple is particularly hated, or if they get back together in the end or something, I probably wouldn't read it. For example, I would probably read a fanfic where either Rikki or Zane dated an OC, but I would hope for them to get back together in the end or something. But I wouldn't read one where you broke up Cleo and Lewis so that one of them could date an OC. However, in Mako Mermaids, I really hate Evie, so I would definitely read a fanfic where Evie and Zac broke up and dated OCs.

**4. **Don't make an OC the main character. Unless you're writing a next generation fic obviously, but that's not what I mean. It's also okay to make them _a _main character, but as long as _the main main _character is a canon character. For example, don't write a fanfic where the canon characters are all minor characters, and the story is told from the point of view of a main character who is an OC. However, I will make an exception. If the story is AU, that's fine. Like the fanfic H2O: Just Add A Merman by MysticalMerman. That's AU, so it's fine for the story to be told by the main character who is an OC.

**5. **Don't create siblings for canon characters. Unless it's someone like Bella, don't. With Bella, it's okay, because we never heard anything about her family really, apart from the fact that her dad's a hotel manager, so we don't know if she doesn't have any siblings. Or maybe with Rikki it's alright, because her parents are divorced. We don't know when her mum moved out, but it could have been when Rikki was really young, so she might have a brother or a sister who moved out with their mum that she doesn't even remember. Or maybe she just doesn't talk about them because she misses them, or perhaps just hates them. With the others, maybe it's also okay if, again, they left or something when they were so young that they don't even remember them, or if they just miss them. Or maybe they went missing or something. In situations like that, it's okay. But in general, just don't.

Right, enough rambling about the bad side, it's now time for...

**The good side**

**1. **OCs can actually really move a story along. For example, you might want to write a fanfic about Emma while she's travelling the world with her family, and of course, to do this, you would probably have to include some OCs. Like new friends that Emma makes and stuff like that. Or a continuation where you introduce new characters who are part of the new plot. Or the fanfic could be AU. Or maybe you want something to happen in the story, but only your OC could get this to happen, and none of the canon characters could.

**2. **Creating well written and well developed OCs is the first step to writing your own stories, isn't it? Because if you can create your own OC, that's practise for creating a character for an actual story that you write. For me, writing fanfiction is just a way to practise my writing skills, character development and things like that (as well as because I love the fandoms that I write for, so basically, I love H2O, but that's part of it anyway). So if you can create a good OC that everyone likes, then if you want to become an author, you can create a character for one of your own stories. How are you eventually going to put away fanfiction and move on to writing your own stories if the only characters you've written about are pre-made? You'll never improve without stumbling a few times.

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**mesayhipeepels, you're welcome. ;) And thanks for following, favouriting and reviewing :) :P**

**I'll update soon, keep reading! Review, favourite and follow!  
**

**Forever and always,  
-Kat xxx**


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